


Orange

by Asymptotical



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Character's Terrible Attempts At Flirting Are Also Real Murder Threats, Enemies have to corroborate each other's cover, M/M, Pre-Star Wars: The Old Republic - Shadow of Revan, Theron Shan/Bad Decisions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 10:16:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20946689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asymptotical/pseuds/Asymptotical
Summary: Theron's mission intersects with the Wrath of the Empire's.It would have been really useful to know who the heck Wrath wasbeforethe mission, but he can work around not knowing.





	Orange

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wednesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesday/gifts).

Theron's cover was unraveling. 

It happened. Sometimes, someone the SIS was certain wouldn't be around to contradict a background showed up anyway. Theron had hoped he'd be able to recover from this; freelancers that worked with the Exchange on Nar Shaddaa were pretty interchangeable and the communication they'd forged was perfect enough that the woman who'd supposedly written it was frowning at her own outbox struggling to remember writing it. 

It wasn't going to be good enough. He could see the suspicion rising. This was going to get ugly quickly. Time to figure out an escape route. 

"It was during that whole mess with Abetz." A new voice rang out. "He's the slicer that you borrowed. The one who got into his vault." 

Before he even turned to see who spoke, Theron was trying to match the voice to a profile. Not Exchange; not the right accent, not the right tone. Not SIS either. The excuse didn't match with Theron's cover, not exactly. It was close enough that if the woman trusted him they would have been able to weave the two together, but not when she was _already_ suspicious. 

Some Imperial was trying to help him for some reason. In the middle of a war. Or maybe trying to bury him deeper in an effort to shore up their own cover story. 

The all looked towards the speaker, various levels of skepticism on their faces. 

The Sith smiled, and the Exchange members' memories rearranged themselves to match what he said. 

Theron kept his mouth shut. 

For a brief panicked moment it was very very tempting to point out the inaccuracies, because a _Sith_ involving himself right at this moment wouldn't mean anything good for Theron. He didn't recognize this one, but powerful Sith rose and fell often enough that Theron wasn't going to just assume that meant he could easily deal with this guy. 

It was equally tempting to assume he'd resisted the mind trick, but he knew better. He'd done it before and he knew what it felt like. This one hadn't touched him. The Sith knew his cover was a lie and he'd decided to reaffirm it anyways, without doing anything to manipulate Theron into it other than providing Theron with an out. Why? 

"_That_ mess, ugh." The Exchange leader groaned, snapping the holopad closed. "Shit, man, why didn't you just say that? I try not to remember that whole fucking disaster. Spent it so mad I couldn't see straight and then got blitzed later. Fucking asshole tryna steal my people. Shoulda kept him alive for longer, let the refugees have a bit of him for a snack every day." 

The whole room calmed down and she shot the Sith an amused look, as though she knew him. "What you doing back anyways?" 

"I need to steal your slicer again." 

"Ain't my slicer. He's…" She peered back at Theron. 

He had a lot of decisions to make in a very short space of time. All he had to do was play back into the cover that the Sith was providing and he could easily weave the two together right now. It might even be solid enough that he'd be able to re-use this identity later. Except a Sith would know about it. A Sith who clearly wanted Theron for something. A Sith who _probably_ knew that Theron was an SIS agent and might actually be straight up aiming at kidnapping Theron because why else would he back up a random spy's unravelling identity. 

Unless the outside correlation would help his mind trick stick for long enough for the Sith to do whatever it was he was trying to do. 

"Tarlin's." He answered, keeping his stance loose and unworried. Tarlin didn't know him either, but at this point if Tarlin walked in the door it would probably just mean another mind trick. Whoever this Sith was, he was powerful enough to sway a room without any gestures to give him away. For all Theron knew, the man didn't even know he'd mind tricked them. Some Force users just did that subconsciously and didn't realize they weren't nearly as naturally persuasive or charming as they thought they were. Jedi were trained not to do that. Sith? Not so much. 

"Right. Fuck. Barely work with Tarlin anymore since he got all cozy with that Hutt. Shoulda just mentioned the Abetz thing." 

"I figured the extensive job would be more of a recommendation than the one off slicing trick." He shrugged. "Next time I'll mention Abetz." 

Right after finding out who exactly Abetz was. Presumably someone who had actually existed. The Sith must have done his homework. Or, more realistically, Imperial Intelligence had done their homework. 

Which could also explain why the Sith knew there would be another spy here. _That_ was definitely going in his report, if he survived this. 

The Sith smiled. "The object Tarlin has him after and the people I'm here to kill are one and the same. They're hidden away just past Exchange territory in the Nikto sector. Will you lend me the access codes and your slicer here?" He winked charmingly at the exchange leader. "I promise not to abuse either." 

She laughed. "Yeah, sure. Where you gotta get to?" 

"Past Zer's lockdown. My targets likely have another way in, but if I wait long enough to find it they'll escape." 

That _was_ where Theron needed to go. 

There was also zero chance they were going to give the Sith that sort of access. There was a _reason_ Theron was here to try to join the Exchange group instead of stealing the codes. Even a mind trick wasn't going to hold through that sort of dissonance, not unless the Sith got a hell of a lot more heavy handed with it and risked it all going down the moment they'd been away from him for long enough. The Sith was probably lucky the mind trick was holding through his absolute lack of even trying to talk like a gangster. 

He could see the same sort of conclusion on the faces of the people around them, especially the Exchange leader. 

Then they looked at the Sith, who was standing there with half a smile on his face as though he were asking for access to the kitchens instead of one of their most secure and secret territories. 

The Exchange leader rolled her eyes. "Guess it's not an issue if it's you." She waved a finger at him warningly. "Gonna be checking in _tight_ on that access though, so don't be trying anything! Tell us about that alternate entrance if you find it?" 

The Sith laughed. "Absolutely." 

* * *

Theron kept track of his escape routes as he followed the Sith down through the Nikto sector. The Sith hadn't made any attempt to force Theron along with him. He'd just… turned around and left and assumed Theron would follow. 

He also hadn't made any attempt to keep pretending not to be Sith after they were well clear of the Exchange. One very foolish attempted mugging had ended with four idiots blasted through a steel grate before Theron even finished aiming. 

It was technically possible that the Sith had bought his cover story, or just didn't care and needed a slicer. Theron didn't have any proof that the Sith knew he was SIS and he had no intention of saying anything that would confirm it. 

But the Sith did know what he was after. He knew that Theron considered dealing with the relic important enough that he was following an obvious Sith down into the sort of territory that even if Theron _did_ have backup they'd never be able to reach him. 

So, he probably knew Theron was SIS. Or at least he knew that Theron was working with the Republic. Even in peacetime there would have been a good chance that whenever Theron sliced past whatever door the man wanted through, the Sith would try to kill him. Since it _wasn't_ peacetime, either there was enough of a Sith mess going on that this one didn't care about the war, or Theron was walking to his death. 

Theron had to get some sort of information before they actually hit that point. Getting the relic away from one Sith just to hand it to an unknown Sith would be worse than leaving it where it was. 

He waited until the Sith was several meters past the other side of a blast door that Theron could slice closed in four seconds if he needed to. Connecting his implants to the door as he loitered in the entryway lowered the timeframe to a second and a half. 

"You want these guys dead pretty bad, huh?" he asked, faking just enough nonchalance to pass. 

The Sith turned and gave him a long look, then smirked. "My Master doesn't care about the artifact. It's a trinket. A dangerous trinket, but nothing worth wasting my time on. If he wants it later he can just take it from you." 

"You think your master can just take what he wants from wherever?" 

"Yes." 

"Good luck with that." 

The Sith chuckled. Normally Theron would have put it off as Sith arrogance but there was some sort of undercurrent to this one that set him on edge. 

Then the Sith was moving. Theron reacted as fast as he could to slam the blast door shut. A second and a half. That was all he needed 

By a second, the Sith had yanked him through the entryway with the Force. The blast door slammed shut behind Theron in the next half second and the Sith slammed Theron back against it. 

Shit. 

"You're going to get out of here," the Sith crooned at him, "and you're going to make your report, and then you're going to find out just how close you were to being _unmade_." 

Fuck. 

Theron was pretty certain that the Sith was threatening to tear him apart. Literally. 

Theron's dick was pretty certain that the Sith had entirely different ideas and Theron was despairing of his poor choices in everything. Some mysterious evil guy slamming him against the door was _not_ hot. It was _not_. He'd dealt with Sith before. He'd even dealt with Sith throwing him around before. 

Most of them didn't make bedroom eyes and purr at him while they did it. 

He could mask the reaction, he was pretty sure. 

"You aren't the first Sith I've dealt with," he snapped, once he was certain he had control enough of his reactions to respond like he wanted to. "So how about you cut the theatrics and tell me what you're actually up to." 

De-escalation might have been smarter…but even though Theron was going to have a hell of a bruise where he hit the door, he could have easily had broken bones. The Sith either wasn't as strong as he pretended to be, or he'd been careful. That gave Theron a lot of room to work with here. 

The Sith slid his hand up to grip Theron's neck, leaning in close enough that his breath brushed over Theron's ear. "I'm here to kill an awful lot of people. Keep your mouth shut and you won't be one of them." 

"You--" Theron cut off as the Sith's hand tightened, nearly panicking at the sudden lack of air and the pressure on his windpipe before he managed to fight it back down. 

The Sith chuckled at him, keeping his hand tight. "I will do exactly as I want. You can either come along and get what you want, or run and don't. I'll get my kill eventually either way, it'll just be cleaner with you along to open the doors and clean up the trash." 

Then he stepped back away, leaving Theron with a bruised neck and a lot of complaints. 

* * *

The plan was simple, even if Theron had to come up with the plan more or less on his own and just assume that tall, irresponsible, and murderous over there would go in and kill once the doors were open. Theron would slice open the main door, then hook into the system and take down the comms, security doors, and any automated defenses. Once that was done, he'd catch up to the Sith. Supposedly after the Sith murdered the Darth that controlled this place and all of his people he'd leave and Theron could do what he wanted with everything else. 

Theron severely doubted that, but he'd known he was in over his head from the moment the Sith had shown up and there was no calling in backup until this was done. He had the maps of this place; there was a decent chance he could duck out if he had to, so long as the Sith was more focused on the target. 

It was far too quiet once he finished taking control of the system and moved to the more dangerous part of the plan. There should have been the sounds of fighting. There had been, distantly, while he disabled the comms and security doors. 

The halls were littered with bodies. Some of them had died terrified. 

What the fuck. 

It hadn't been anywhere near long enough for some random Sith to fight this many other Sith. Maybe he'd had inside help? That would…yeah. Had to be that. 

It didn't take Theron long to run down to the inner chamber. The only thing he had to do was not trip over all the bodies. 

The relic that was Theron's entire reason for being here was hanging in the center of the fancy inner room, glowing ominously over some sort of ritual. Later, he'd worry about getting Jedi in to safely deal with it. Right now, all he cared about was the single solitary Sith that was holding a Darth up by his neck, surrounded by the bodies of other Sith. 

Not working with anyone then. 

Theron's Sith snapped the Darth's neck and threw the man to the ground dismissively. Then he smiled at Theron. "Perfect timing." It didn't sound like he was being sarcastic. "I'm done here. You can get what you want, maybe clean up the mess." 

And just like that, he started walking away. 

"Seriously?" Theron asked, because apparently his sense of self preservation had been lost somewhere around the thirtieth body. "You just came here to murder a bunch of people and that's it? No last minute stand to fight over the creepy artifact? No dramatically destroying the computers so I can't get information?" 

The Sith paused, then smiled and moved back towards Theron. Theron held his ground, meeting the Sith's eyes even when the other man was close enough that it meant Theron had to tilt his head back uncomfortably. The Sith reached out and grabbed his chin, caressing his thumb along Theron's jawline. Theron couldn't help but think of the bruises on his neck. The Sith seemed to be thinking along the same lines, since he slid his hand down and pressed his fingers lightly into the bruises, just enough to make them hurt. "I can think of _one_ thing here I might want to claim, but unfortunately that would take more effort that I have time to waste on my personal whims." 

Then he let Theron go and left. 

Theron didn't start breathing evenly again until the Sith was well out of sight. Didn't move until several seconds later. 

He was going to have to figure out who the _fuck_ that was as soon as humanly possible, but first he needed to get this situation wrapped up. Identify the secondary route into this place, re-establish contact now that he wasn't undercover, call in Jedi to deal with the artifact, contact the SIS outpost for help with the servers and cleanup, figure out who the heck he needed to inform that they had a Sith who hadn't been anywhere on his 'people to run from' sheet who definitely _should_ have been pretty high up that sheet. 

With luck, Theron wouldn't be running into him again. 


End file.
